


Stolen Son of Dathomir

by DaughterOfDungeonBat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: 'Maul' isn't his birth name, Alien Biology, Angst, Angst with no happy ending, Backstory for Darth Maul, Banned Together Bingo, BannedTogether2020, Dathomirian Zabrak culture, F/M, Interracial Relationship, Kidnapping, Night Brothers - Freeform, Prompt Fill, Zabrak can purr in my heart, Zabrak have two hearts in canon, based off of the 'he had a human mother and was ripped from her arms' version of his backstory, fun fact- Malcontent was named by my dad during a car ride (hi dad!)!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfDungeonBat/pseuds/DaughterOfDungeonBat
Summary: Before there was the Sith with the twin-bladed saber, there was a little Zabrak. He was loved by his parents, even when he gained strange abilities as he grew.When the little Zabrak was six, Mother Talzin decided to make a point to an associate. Something to show him how little she regarded him.The little Zabrak's world was shifted on its axis.
Relationships: Darth Maul's Mother/Darth Maul's Father, Original Male Character(s)/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 7
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Stolen Son of Dathomir

**Author's Note:**

> It feels like a hundred years since I've written for Banned Together Bingo, but I really needed a break after the MONSTROCITY that was the Codywan happy infidelity fic. I actually intended for this to be 500 words flat, but as you can see, that didn't happen.
> 
> note- 'Vicious' is pronounced 'vish-us,' hence Gailia's nicknames for her baby boy. Gailia is pronounced 'gale' like hail, 'ia.'

Most visitors of Dathomir would say, with confidence, that the so-called ‘Rancor Planet’ had never seen a nice day. The sky was clouded by the gasses that seeped from the planet’s crust, the wildlife was less than friendly, and what plants managed to grow in the acidic soil were thorny and tough. The harshness of the planet was probably why, in the history of the galaxy, two different groups had hedged their bets on Dathomir as a place where even their enemies wouldn’t be dense enough to chase them.  
  
The Zabrak of Iridonia had sent colonies to escape the constant conflicts between the Mandalorians and everyone around them, which unfortunately included their home world. They had not found Dathomir nearly as deserted as they had expected, though. No, the Zabrak had found their foul oasis already supporting a small population of the only other sentients in the galaxy stubborn or foolish enough to try and call the planet home- humans.  
  
The humans could not remember why that had come to Dathomir originally, or why their ancestors had chosen to stay when others had, rather reasonably, fled to other, more hospitable planets, but they knew that Dathomir was their home, and that they had no intention of leaving.  
  
And so the two populations formed a peace, mixing until the Dathomirian Zabrak, hybrids between human and Iridonian, were distinct from their distant cousins on their home world. It was not until the Zabrak divided their population between the sorcerous Night Sisters and fearsome Night Brothers, in a period of time that would one day be called the waning centuries of the Old Republic, that the species became separate once more.  
  
All that aside, it was a nice day on Dathomir. The sky was the closest it ever got to clear, many non-toxic plants were in bloom, and no beasts had been seen near the Night Brother village for some time.  
  
“Vicious?” Said Gailia, a human woman, in a tone that one did not usually use to say such a word. Of course, one did not usually say such a word while walking through an overgrown garden in a sundress, but Gailia was not a usual woman. She looked very much like an ordinary human woman. She was shorter than most, with light brown hair cut short, and with skin the same pallor that most who had been born on Dathomir shared. Her complexion was made even more striking by the black tattoos that covered her back and collarbone, the lines twisting in a perfect mimicry of the natural markings of a Zabrak.  
  
This was, of course, because Gailia did not see herself as a human. The way she saw it, her husband was a Zabrak, her son was a Zabrak, she had lived among the Night Brothers for years, and she was striped like a Zabrak. As far as she was concerned, that made her a Zabrak.  
  
Gailia cupped her hands to her mouth as she pretended not to notice how the Mushling bush that climbed high on the wall of the small house moved.  
  
“Vish? Where’s my Fishy?” she said, even as she settled to sit in the moss at her feet in front of the definitely-not-moving bush.  
  
“Mama! Look!” cried the little figure that darted from the bush.  
  
Unlike Gailia, her son was immediately recognizable as a Zabrak. He was a deep crimson, and he was covered with the thick striping that would branch into the unique, more detailed pattern he would wear as an adult. His horns were under an inch long, and each appeared to have been carefully filed to a blunted tip.  
  
He certainly didn’t look vicious. Then again, he didn’t look like a fish either.  
  
Gailia’s laughed aloud and caught Vicious, pulling him into her lap. Vicious grinned up at his mother and opened his cupped hands, revealing a Dathomirian six-legged toad.  
  
“Oh Vicious, you shouldn’t pick up the critters. I bet you scared her.”  
  
“She’s not scared.” Vicious said, not looking up from his new friend, who made no attempt to hop out of his hands. “I asked her if I could hold her.”  
  
Gailia’s smile turned strained in the way that only came from a parent trying to hide their concern from their child. Vicious may have looked like a perfectly ordinary Zabrak, but it had become more and more abundantly clear as he grew that he had abilities far beyond most little boys. No toy had managed yet to stay out of his reach, he could intuit far more than a child so young, and now, evidently, he was communing with the wildlife.  
  
Vicious suddenly straightened, grinning. The little toad, freed from whatever connection she had formed with the boy, hopped off into the tangle of plants.  
  
“Papa’s back!”  
  
Vicious took off towards the front of the house, as Gailia tried to convince herself that her son had heard his father returning, rather than what she knew to be the truth. She rounded the corner just in time to see her husband toss Vicious, shrieking in delight, over his shoulder like he weighed nothing at all.  
  
Everyone who had known Gailia in the human village, her family and friends and strangers, had asked her with much concern why she would ever leave them to marry one of those brutish Night Brothers.  
  
Gailia could have explained any number of things- how Ruthless was the same blazing orange as the sunrise, how he was fascinated by her hair, or how he would brush his hand over her cheek with the same tenderness most only gave to a flower petal.  
  
Instead, Gailia usually just rolled her eyes and indicated that each of Ruthless’ biceps was the size of her head, and asked how she was expected to not fall in love with a man like that.  
  
To put it more simply, Ruthless was a massive orange Zabrak.  
  
“You’re not quite big enough to fight me yet, son.” He laughed, setting Vicious back onto his feet so he could pull Gailia close. She stretched up on the tips of her toes to kiss her husband as Vicious darted around his father, excitedly telling Ruthless about the toad he had befriended.  
  
“What did your brother need?” Gailia asked, her voice low. Ruthless tilted his head so his long horns pointed at Vicious. Gailia just nodded. They would discuss it later, once they had gotten their son to bed.  
  
Until then, though, they would go about their evening in the usual way. Vicious insisted that he wasn’t tired, as all little children did when their bedtimes approached, but as all little children did, he fell asleep almost as soon as his parents could convince him to stop moving.  
  
“Mother Talzin wants to see us.” Ruthless said once they had settled into bed themselves. Gailia groaned aloud and buried her face in her husband’s neck.  
  
“I hate her.” She said, despite how deeply unnecessary the statement was. The last time the two women had been in proximity of one another, when Talzin had come to the village looking for a mate, Gailia had nearly taken a swing at the witch.  
  
“Never would have guessed, my love.” Ruthless said, stroking Gailia’s back. She huffed again, though she quickly felt herself turning into liquid under her husband’s gentle hands.  
  
“Fine, but I won’t be happy about it.”

Despite Gailia’s fury at having to face Talzin, Vicious’ excitement at being summoned like a ‘real Night Brother’ was almost infectious. Luckily, getting him ready the next morning only involved half the wrestling into clothes that it normally did.  
  
Vicious and Ruthless would both be bare from the waist up- Night Brothers did not hide their markings, and especially not the patterns on their backs. Those markings were their culture, their history, their lineage. While each Zabrak carried a completely unique set of stripes, certain elements remained consistent within families. Like hereditary fingerprints, Zabraks carried their family trees on their skin. Gailia couldn’t read patterns nearly as well as a natural-born Zabrak, but she knew that the markings that Vicious did not share with his father had been used as the basis for her own tattoos.  
  
So, displaying their marks, the little family went with the rest of the Night Brothers to the center of their settlement.  
  
Their, as expected, was Mother Talzin, in her blood red robes and high collar, but with her was another figure. An older human man, in a dark cowl that he had pulled to cover his face to just below his brow line.  
  
The fabric was far too fine to have been woven on Dathomir, or even to have been bought within the system.  
  
Vicious made a tiny noise and stopped walking. Gailia hefted him into her arms, letting Vicious tuck his face into her neck and wrap his legs tightly around her waist. She settled one hand on the back of his head, pressing small circles into the sensitive skin at the base of his central horn. She could feel his hearts racing, and his breath had started to buzz with a self-soothing purr.  
  
“It’s alright Fishy.” She said as quietly as she could, even as she exchanged an uneasy glance with Ruthless, who just shrugged.  
  
Mother Talzin’s eyes landed on Gailia, who stared her down. On any other occasion, she might have given the arrogant witch a piece of her mind, but she didn’t want to upset Vicious further. Talzin smiled, though it was a cold thing.  
  
“Ruthless and Gailia, and your little one. Exactly who I was hoping to see.”  
  
Gailia bared her teeth, and Ruthless placed a hand on her shoulder. The leader of the Night Brothers, a young green Zabrak named Malcontent, stepped forward, his head bowed obediently.  
  
“We have gathered just as you asked, Mother Talzin.” He said, the question of why hanging in the air even as he did not dare voice it as he eyed the outsider. Mal knew not to question her directly- it was part of the reason that his predecessor had lost his life.  
  
“Thank you for your obedience, Malcontent. My friend here is seeking an apprentice,” Talzin said, almost sickly sweet but with enough edge on the word ‘friend’ to indicate how little regard she actually held for the man. “and I had just the candidate in mind.”  
  
Gailia felt ice crawl up her spine when Talzin’s eyes landed on her again.  
  
“You cannot mean-“ the man hissed. Talzin just smiled that vile smile again, and flicked her wrist. Before Gailia could break from the crowd, green tendrils of smog lifted from the ground and bound themselves around her ankles like serpents.  
  
Vicious stopped purring, and started shaking violently.  
  
Ruthless stepped to act, but was stopped when Talzin raised her hand. There was no acrid stench of magic, just the training from birth of a Night Brother.  
  
“Ruthless, Gailia,” Talzin said as she stepped forward, the gathered Zabrak cleared a path for her and formed a tight ring around the apparent guests of honor. “don’t you see that this is for the best? He will never know the harsh life of a Night Brother, never to be killed for fathering a son.”  
  
To Gailia’s rising horror, Ruthless and his brothers were nodding.  
  
“Stay away from him.” She snarled, clutching Vicious closer and looking, desperately and in vain, for a way that he could escape. If she kept holding him, he was trapped with her, but if she let him go, one of the other Zabrak would just grab him.  
  
Mother Talzin loomed over them.  
  
“Ruthless!” Gailia cried, and for a moment, she thought she had gotten through to her husband. Ruthless placed a hand on her shoulder, and softly ran a hand over Vicious’ head. And then the hand on her shoulder tightened, and Gailia wailed.  
  
She did not stop screaming as Talzin hooked her bony arms around Vicious’ chest and pulled with supernatural strength.  
  
“Mama!” Vicious cried out when his little arms finally gave out and he was hauled away from his mother.  
  
“Ruthless- Ruthless let go of me NOW!” Gailia struggled against her husband’s hold on her shoulders, as if him releasing her would somehow free her of Talzin’s magic. Vicious fought with every bit of strength in his small form to get away from Talzin, but in just seconds that felt like centuries, the leader of the Night Sisters planted the squirming boy’s feet in front of the scowling cloaked man.  
  
The man waved a pale hand in front of Vicious’ face, and the boy went limp. A flick of the wrist lifted Vicious off his feet, pulling him through the air like a broken doll.  
  
It was long after they had disappeared from sight that Gailia stopped screaming for her son. She only stopped when her voice gave out.  
  
Mother Talzin did not release the spell around Gailia’s legs until the man’s ship had broken Dathomir’s atmosphere, when Talzin herself was long gone.  
  
Gailia went back to the human village that very night, and she never returned.  
  
~  
  
As you may have gathered if you are clever, little Vicious was not destined for greatness and opportunity in the way that his father was so sure of. In reality, Mother Talzin has only given him to her less-than-a-friend to spite him, and Vicious would have probably been better off staying as a Night Brother than in the care of the man he will call Master, some call Sidious, and a galaxy will call Emperor.  
  
He will be raised by droids, on a planet spewing fire, tormented until the faces of his mother and father and even the name they gave him are burned to ash.  
  
He will be powerful, far beyond what those who loved him could have imagined.  
  
For the first time in a millennia, a Jedi will die by the crimson blade of a Sith- the blade he will hold.  
  
‘Lost son of Dathomir,’ Mother Talzin will call him after he has suffered far beyond deserving, as she crafts him new legs and pulls madness from his mind with her twisted magic, as if it were not her who stole him in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> .....I'm sorry, Gailia.
> 
> Very soon after this, Talzin 'rewards' Ruthless by taking him as a mate. Sadly for Ruthy, Savage is born, and Ruthless is killed for siring a son. Talzin later takes another mate, resulting in Feral.
> 
> Please don't hate Ruthy! He really thinks this will be good for Vicious, and he can't even imagine something as terrible as the training that his son will be put through.


End file.
